1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information delivery system to a user in a specific area, and more particularly to the technique for delivering information to a mobile terminal in a specific area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an information delivery system is known in which contents or electronic data about shops and attractions previously prepared for collecting visitors are delivered to mobile terminals of the visitor in a specific area such as a shopping mall and a theme park. In the conventional information delivery system, however, the same contents are evenly delivered to all the visitors. It is not carried out to deliver the contents suitable for each visitor. Therefore, even if the goods desired by the visitor are sold at a shop in the shopping mall, the visitor cannot sometimes purchase the goods. Thus, the shop has lost a business chance.
For this reason, a recommendation system is being introduced which automatically recommends contents or goods fitting with the interest of the user based on access records and purchase records in large-scaled Web sites (portal site) such as a search site and a news site which the user first accesses on a network. As such a recommendation system, a mobile communication system is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P2001-203811). In this first conventional example, a user of a mobile terminal can easily receive a data service suitable for the life style and interest of the user. In the mobile communication system of the first conventional example, an information service apparatus carries out an information service process based on an information service program. A position data of a mobile terminal of a user is received from a switching apparatus and outputted to an estimating and accumulating apparatus. Also, the information service apparatus reads customer data from a customer database, and reads interest data of the mobile terminal user from a customer interest database based on the customer data and outputs to the estimating and accumulating apparatus. The estimating and accumulating apparatus estimates menu data based on the position data and the interest data, and delivers to the mobile terminal via the switching apparatus.
This recommendation system is very expensive and it is large load on a provider to introduce the recommendation system into a small site. Also, in the recommendation system, when a user accesses the site and puts an article in a shopping basket, other articles are recommended to the user. Through the above operation, the interest of the user is searched and registered on the customer interest database. When the user enters a specific are, the recommendation system searches articles or contents from the customer interest database in accordance with predetermined rules. Therefore, it takes a long time until the menu data to be delivered are determined. As a result, the menu data suitable for the user cannot be delivered at the timing that the user enters the specific area.
Also, an information delivery system is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P2001-209698A). In this second conventional example, first data useful to a user in a specific area and a delivery time of the first data are previously registered. At the delivery time, a part of the first data is delivered to a mobile terminal of the user who visits the specific area. At this time, the part of the first data matches to attribute data of the user. Second data different from the first data is delivered to a mobile terminal of another user who is not present in the specific area. Thus, the second conventional example intends to solve the problem of the recommendation system. In the second conventional example, however, the user needs to contract a provider and to carry out member registration, before the user visits the specific area. Also, the object to which the information delivery system is applied is the user who visits the specific area repeatedly. Therefore, the service cannot be provided to a new user who visits the specific area by chance.
In conjunction with the above description, a method of extracting a feature of a moving object is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P2000-155757A). In this third conventional example, a visit data acquiring section acquires place data based on position data of a detected position of a user and a map database. Also, a situation in which the user visits the detected position is registered as situation data. The place data and the situation data are related to each other and accumulated in a visit database as visit data. A feature extracting section analyzes the accumulated visit data, and extracts a movement pattern of the user. A using section implements a process for the extracted movement pattern in accordance with predetermined rules.
Also, a guidance method using a user detecting function is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-P2000-029932A). In this fourth conventional example, a system detects and specifies a user, and provides data necessary to the user to the user without any complicated operations by the user. Also, the system dynamically provides the necessary data to the user in a form determined in accordance with purpose, necessity, and interest of the user.
Also, an information guidance method to a mobile terminal user is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei 11-55726). In this fifth conventional example, a current position of the mobile terminal is monitored by an information guidance server via an access point and a network, and the server provides area data corresponding to the current position and data of another user to the mobile terminal.